As a web page is loaded by a web browser, the web browser provides various visual indications to a user that the web page has not fully loaded. The indications can be, for example, a status bar message such as “loaded 17 out of 23 items” or displaying an hourglass icon in addition to or in place of a mouse cursor. Such indications can be provided to a user until an “onload” event is triggered, signaling that the web page has no pending components to be loaded.
A time to achieve an onload event can be a measure of website performance. Specifically, longer load times can cause a user perception that a website exhibits poor performance which, in turn, can lead to the user abandoning the website and defecting to other, more responsive websites. In order to reduce the time to achieve the onload event, some websites have delayed the loading of one or more components, such as advertisements, until after the onload event has been triggered. However, by not loading advertisements until after the onload event, the websites can also experience a decrease in advertisement engagement, (e.g., clicks on advertisements, views, etc.), which can lead to difficulties in attracting advertisers and negotiating advertisement rates, as well as decreased advertising revenue.